Leader of the Opposition Ramesh Chennithala has been in an almost permanent state of agitation against the LDF government since 2016.
Now, Mr. Chennithala perhaps also has to make the delicate case that he could lead a future UDF government as well if mandated by the Congress high command.
The political significance of former Chief Minister Oommen Chandy contesting the Assembly election seemed not lost on the Chennithala camp.
Moreover, the Congress has not projected any one as its Chief Minister candidate. In contrast, the LDF has named Pinarayi Vijayan as its Chief Minister if voted to power for a second consecutive term.
Taking time off a hectic campaign schedule, Mr. Chennithala told The Hindu that a UDF win was inevitable.
Sabarimala was a scar in the mind of Ayyappa devotees. Their pain would reflect in the Assembly election. The government appeared belatedly apologetic about its ham-fisted attempt to enact the 2018 Supreme Court verdict allowing women's entry.
However, the LDF was patently unwilling to revoke the dubious affidavit that prompted the Supreme Court's majority decision in the first place.
RSS ideologue R. Balashankar had spotlighted the CPI(M)-BJP axis. The covert alliance extended across the State. The issues Mr. Chennithala had raised as the Opposition Leader still resonated among voters. It had also made him a target of big business.
The LDF had sensed an opportunity in every calamity to indulge in corruption. At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, it allowed a U.S. based big data analytics firm to mine the personal medical information of Keralites.
Entrenched corruption led to the Chief Minister's Office getting embroiled in the UAE gold smuggling case. The scandal had cast the government in a cloud of suspicion.
At the fag of its tenure, the LDF sought to allow a foreign fishing firm to exploit the State's marine wealth at an industrial scale. Fishers rose in revolt against the scheme. The UDF led the protests from the front. The government backtracked.
Mr. Chennithala said nearly two lakh LDF sympathisers were primed to double or triple vote in the Assembly election. Nefarious actors in the government had accorded multiple voter identities to LDF workers and their kin.
They had used made-up names and incorrect addresses to register the same set of people as voters in multiple booths in the same constituency. “I have petitioned the Chief Election Commissioner. A probe is on. I expect the authorities to purge the fake voters from the electoral list,” he said.
Mr. Chennithala said he had never contemplated leaving Haripad. His roots in the constituency ran deep. “It is an emotional bond,” he said.